[kwlug-disc] Purging already removed Debian packages.

[Andrew Cant]

Thanks everyone for you response. It looks like Khalid has the winning
submission.
Doing a purge through apt-get complains that the package is not
installed, and therefore cannot be purged.

But aptitude seems to handle this situation no problem, purging the
offending package even when it is removed.


On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 2:35 AM, Kevin <norwood.kevin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 13/05/2010 11:23 PM, Andrew Cant wrote:
>>
>> Here is a little Debian question:
>>
>> How do I purge a package that I have already removed?
>> (For those not familiar with Debian when you 'remove' a package the
>> configuration files are left in place for future use. Unless you
>> 'purge' it, then everything is removed.
>>
>> Doing a little research the normal method would be to re-install and
>> then purge, like so:
>>
>> sudo apt-get install example_package
>> sudo apt-get purge example_package
>>
>> But unfortunately the packages that I need to purge no longer have
>> install candidates, so I cannot install them.
>>
>> Any suggestions? How can I purge a removed package without re-installing
>> it?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> (P.S.: For context, this has come up in the process of installing
>> Debian stable, and immediately upgrading to testing(squeeze). The
>> update to squeeze wants to change me over to dependency based-booting,
>> but because of some files left around by some of the removed packages
>> it can't. So I need to purge before I can have it try setting up the
>> dependency-based booting again.)
>>
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>>
>
> sudo apt-purge <package name> won't work? It has been a while for me.
>
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